Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker suspends 15 BJP MLAs, state minister Vikramaditya Singh steps down

The political drama in Himachal Pradesh took a fresh turn after state assembly speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania suspended 15 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs from the house allegedly for creating ruckus in his chamber.

The 15 BJP MLA's who were suspended from the House include Jai Ram Thakur, Vipin Parmar, Randhir Sharma, Hans Raj, Vinod Kumar, Janak Raj, Balbir Verma, Lokinder Kumar, Trilok Jamwal, Surinder Shourie, Puran Chand, Dalip Thakur, Inder Singb Gandhi, Ranbir Nikka and Deep Raj.

Meanwhile, Vikramaditya Singh, a state minister and the son of the former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh stepped down from his position, a day after the Rajya Sabha election result in the state.


"The (state) government failed to find even a small piece of land on Mall Road to install the statue of a person (Virbhadra Singh) who was the CM of Himachal Pradesh six times, because of whom this government was formed," he said.

He said, "All I would like to say is that under the current circumstances, it is not correct for me to continue as a part of the government. So, I have decided that I am resigning from the Council of Ministers. I am resigning as a minister. In the time to come, I will have video consultations with my people and then decide about the future course of action..."

"For me, the most important thing is the relationship with the people of Himachal Pradesh," he added.

"But the kind of system prevailing in the government in last one year, how MLAs were overlooked and attempts were made to stifle their voices - this is a result of that," he said.

In a shocking political development in the state on Tuesday, the ruling Congress's Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost the Rajya Sabha election to the BJP's Harsh Mahajan despite the Congress enjoying a comfortable majority in the state assembly.

Both candidates secured 34 votes each in the 68-member state assembly.

Victory tilted towards Mahajan after a draw of lots was held as a tie-breaker.

The victory is even more detrimental in the wake of former BJP Himachal CM Jai Ram Thakur's claim that the Sukhu government has been reduced to a minority in the house.

However, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi conceded his defeat and 'thanked' the MLAs who cross-voted leading to the victory of Harsh Mahajan.

"I would also like to thank the nine persons (MLAs) because they have taught me a lot about human nature, its fickleness or its resoluteness. They supped with us. So, I think we are bad judges of human character, they are obviously better judges of human character," he said.

Earlier, CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had claimed that opposition leaders were obstructing the work of counting officials, and that "5-6 Congress MLAs were taken away in a convoy of the CRPF and Haryana Police.